Review Before Adam by Jack London

Content Summary

In this article we will try to examine Before Adam written by Jack London. We will kool at the book from today’s perspective. We will share the parts that catch out attention.

Before Adam Price Comparison

The Before Adam takes place in the most primitive times of humanity when there was no fire yet. Only the strong survive in this world.  People can’t speak yet, they can comminicate with voices and live in treetops or caves to protect themselves form predators.

Jack London believes there is no such ting as coming to the Word fort he first time. The novel also build this idea. The author dreaming of a big teeth who lived millions of years before him. He conveys all the traces of the big teeth’s life come to him inherited and he re-experiences all these in his dreams.(1)

So far it seems interesting, but I’m sure Jack London wouldn’t have written this book or would have written it otherwise if he were alive today. Science has come long way since itself. Nevertheless this techinque he tried to do and set up is appreciated by an ordinary reader like me.

The Topic Of Before Adam

Three different generations are told in the same period in the novel Before Adam. The most primitive tree man. The most contempoarary community fire man. The people of our hero, who is more advanced than them and can live in caves. As the name suggests, the fireman found the fire. They mostly use fire as a weapon. They don’t use fire for cooking and warming. Although these there generations live in the same period and are very close to each other spatially, they don’t have any cultural interaction. They eat each other after killing each other. In this regard, they are cannibals.

A Photo of Jack London

The name of the character that no one can beat in the novel is Red eye. Red eye is the wildest character. It disturbs the peace of the society in which he lives and harms those around him. Our hero tells us that they cannot punish the red eye because there is no social unity. Yes there is no social unity, but when the tiger is attacking, they can think of Stones together.

And the end of this novel Before Adam, Kızılgöz imposes himself on fire man. This is an example of rare transitions between generations.

When the narrator couldn’t get out, he turned to statements such as “I dont remember exactly.” He made a statement like “I don’t see my dreams consecutively, but ı have listed them for you.” I think Jack London knew very little of the period he was trying to describe and made little prepation for history. Their knowlaledge is not enough to write such a Before Adam.

Another problem is that a generation that can only communicate with voices dissappears without any progress. There is no administrative stucture at the time of the novel.

In this phase when an administrative stucture is not developed, the two firends go on many adventures. Despite this, the characters can make democratic desicions, but they don’t think to socially.

Before Adam A Book Cover

The author’s mention of violance against women in his novel, which he wrote decades ago, made me very happy. Despite the years that have passed, “The only animal that man kills his wife is human.” The sentence is still valid, unfortunately.

I may seem to have drawn a negative Picture of Before Adam, but as ı said the beginnin g, if the outhor had sat with today’s scientific knowledge, he would have created another work at the head of the table.

The answer the question about why this book should be read is Why Read The Classics of Calvino. You can find it in his work.

Note 1

This explanation of Jack London’s novel Before Adam explains the main science fiction element of Assassin’s Creed series released by today’s popular game companies Ubisoft.

References

https://fs.blog/2012/08/why-read-the-classics/#:~:text=Italo%20Calvino%20argues%20that%20we,and%20inexperience%20in%20life%20itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London